


The Price of Life

by mothermalfoy (slytherinxravenclaw)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Death, Harry as Death, M/M, Open ended, Post-Hogwarts, not happy or sad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 03:18:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18002810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherinxravenclaw/pseuds/mothermalfoy
Summary: During the final battle, Harry is given a choice, to move on to the other side, or return as the Angel of Death. But deciding who lives and who dies, will always come with a price.





	The Price of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the amazing prompt by Drarry-prompt-zone on Tumblr and Betaed by the amazing xx-thedarklord-xx

The world around Harry was both familiar and not. By the looks of it, he was currently standing in King’s Cross station, only it was cleaner than he’d ever seen it, and empty, save for himself, and bright blinding white. He knew, though he couldn’t say how, that he was dead. Though not quite in heaven or hell.

“Purgatory, the Muggle’s call it,” said a familiar voice from behind him. Harry turned to see Dumbledore, dressed head to toe in white. “Though I suspect in this case it’s a more apt title than you realize.” 

“Sir?” Harry asked, tilting his head to the side. 

“King’s Cross has always been a middle ground for your youth Harry. The train taking you to the heaven of Hogwarts, and the hell of your aunt and uncle’s during the summer. It is rather fitting you’d end up here when it came down to it.” 

“Are you here to guide me to the other side?” Harry asked. 

“Not quite,” Dumbledore replied. “I am simply here as a messenger. You have two options set out before you. The first, you move on, you see your parents again, and all those you have loved and lost.”

“And the second?” Harry asked, not even sure he really wanted to consider anything else. He was so tired of fighting. 

“You may return,” Dumbledore said. “But only as the angel of Death. The first soul you claim will be what remains of Voldemort’s,” Dumbledore gestured to a bench beside them, Harry was sure that hadn’t been there before, a bloodied looking baby, with Voldemort’s head lay beneath it, wailing uncontrollably. 

Harry swallowed, staring at his mentor for a brief moment, “So, if I let myself go, I can see my parents, and Sirius, and Remus, and Fred. If I… go back, I can save people? I could bring Fred back?” 

“The debt of death must always be paid, Harry,” Dumbledore said. “If you chose to save one life, another must always take its place. Life and death hangs in an eternal balance, where you, as its master must keep that balance. Choose carefully Harry, for either way, those you chose to bring back stand to lose a piece of their humanity,” he warned. Harry considered it, but in the end, it was never  _ really  _ a choice was it?  

 

**_*Ten Years Later*_ **

_ How many times are we going to have to go through this?  _ Harry wondered to himself as he appeared by his husband’s side, laying on the cold, hard earth. Draco Malfoy was easily the best curse breaker Gringott’s had to offer. He’d apprenticed under Bill Weasley, with no small amount of prodding from Harry, and to date, he had handled more cases than any other curse breaker in his department. He had also died no less than six times in the process. _ It was beginning to get a bit out of hand,  _ Harry thought.  _ Never had this problem with Fred, or Remus or Tonks.  _

“I’m going to have to start calling  _ you, _ The Boy-Who-Lived,” Harry said with a smirk, kneeling over his husband. Draco’s skin was cold, and paler than normal, and Harry had a brief flashback to the sight of Draco nearly dying at his hands in the girls lavatory. “I won’t let you die on me,” Harry said, leaning down to hold his husband in his arms. 

Draco chuckled weakly, “I don’t… think… that’s how it works,” he said, breathlessly. Harry could feel the anguish in his voice, the pain as he lay on the precipice of life and death. 

“Shh, don’t talk baby,” Harry said pressing a kiss to his eyelids. “You forget my love. I’m death. I  _ decide  _ how it works.” The two sat, frozen in time and space, Harry removed his wand from his pocket, and whispered the spell, against his cold flesh. A warm yellow light spread across Draco’s skin, he gasped, and the colour returned to him. Harry smiled, staring down at his husband. “You really need to be more careful,” he said pressing a kiss to Draco’s lips. Draco looked bleary-eyed at his husband. 

“Not again,” he said. 

“I’m afraid so,” Harry replied. “I’m not sure if you heard me, but I joked that at this rate I’m going to start calling  _ you  _ The Boy-Who-Lived,” Harry teased, chuckling at his own joke. 

Draco snorted and got to his feet. Several feet away, a man was bound, still frozen in time. “What do we do about him?” Draco asked, though he already knew the answer. One wasn’t married to Death for the better part of a decade, without learning what happens when your husband circumvents the natural order to save you. 

“He snuck up on me,” Draco said. Harry pulled out his wand and waved it in the direction of the man, whispering a faint. ‘ _ Avada Kedavra. _ ’ Draco no longer flinched away from the sight of Harry taking the life of another. 

“Maybe you should consider retirement,” Harry replied, as he pointed his wand to the ground, to call for a reaper. A black hooded figure appeared from the earth, and stared blankly at Draco for a long moment. “That one,” Harry growled in the direction of the crumpled man on the floor. The reaper still stared, and Harry flicked his wand, sending a blast of silvery-white light toward the creature, until it shrieked and wrapped itself around the man on the floor and the two vanished. Draco shivered, he was always chilly after coming back, Harry noted with a frown, he had tried all manner of potions and spells, but it seemed there was still some piece of him that never quite made it back. He was irritable upon being brought back to life, and inevitably, Harry couldn’t help but hear the voice of Dumbledore in his ears, ‘ _ those you chose to bring back, stand to lose a piece of their humanity.’  _

“You can’t bring me back forever,” Draco said, after a long moment. 

“Who says?” Harry asked, wrapping his arm around his husband’s shoulders, he apparated the two of them back to #12 Grimmauld Place. 

“I do,” Draco replied. “You know it isn’t right. This is the seventh time this has happened to me.” 

“Sixth, tops,” Harry lied. Draco gave him a stern look, his arms folded across his chest. 

“I’m not myself Harry.” 

Harry frowned, “You’re not  _ him  _ either,” he replied. “Either of them,” he added. Draco’s biggest fear, turning into his father, or worse, turning into Voldemort. Bringing him back was hardly a Horcrux, but Harry knew that inevitably upsetting the balance like this would catch up to him. 

“Sure, I have a nose,” Draco joked. “But surely you realize that clearly, the Universe doesn’t want me here.” 

“That’s not for  _ the Universe,  _ to decide now is it?” Harry snapped. 

“Harry you can’t just…” 

“I AM THE MASTER OF DEATH!” Harry barked. “I can do whatever the hell I bloody well please, and if that means keeping my husband alive for the rest of eternity because I can’t live without him, then that is what I’m going to do!” 

Draco sighed, and cupped his hand to Harry’s cheek, “Oh darling. You know that I love you more than anything. But you know this can’t last forever. Eventually, the gods will catch up with you, and if Hades doesn’t sack you he’ll take me regardless.” 

Harry shook his head, and wrapped his arms around Draco’s waist, clutching him tight to his chest. “You aren’t going anywhere,” Harry said. “The balance requires a life for a life, if it came to it, I would always trade my life for yours,” he whispered. 

Draco exhaled a breath against his chest, it was chilly, Harry noted with a frown. “Yes I’m sure the press would be thrilled, ‘Boy-Who-Lived gives up his life for local Death Eater’,” he chuckled darkly. 

“But you know that I would,” Harry said staring earnestly into his husband’s silver eyes. “Tell me you know that I would.” 

“Of course I know,” Draco said. “But sometimes, a life for a life isn’t the way to maintain the balance.” 

“I think  _ I  _ decide what maintains the balance darling. Just because someone is near death, I am the one who must call for the reapers, I am the one who makes that final call.” 

“But Death shouldn’t be swayed.” 

“I’m not.” 

“As if you haven’t taken someone randomly to save a child,” Draco said. 

“That’s different,” Harry argued. 

“Is it? What makes the child’s life more valuable than that of the other person you traded it for?” 

“He was young! He could become anything.” 

“Another Voldemort for instance,” Draco replied. “Or even, a Death Eater.” 

“Or a healer who could cure you of your most morbid fantasies,” Harry teased. 

“Harry be serious. If that boy was  _ meant  _ to live, he would have.” 

“He  _ was  _ meant to live. Because I made the decision. You clearly don’t understand how this death thing works,” Harry pulled out his wand, the Elder Wand. “Someone is on the precipice of life and death. I appear, and I make the final judgement. I see all that they are and all that they will be, and I make the call.” 

“But what if you’re wrong?” Draco asked. 

“That boy, by the way, is going to be fine, not Voldemort or anything,” Harry replied. 

“Fate isn’t set in stone, you’ve said that yourself. Any number of things could change along the way to set the boy on a path to destruction! But what about me?” 

“You’re always worth saving my love,” Harry said pressing his lips to Draco’s still ice cold forehead. Draco sighed, he was far too tired for this argument, and he knew that nothing he could say was going to change his husband’s mind. “Gotta go, duty calls,” Harry said suddenly, and vanished with a loud crack.

Draco crawled into their bed and curled up in a small ball. He only wished Harry would understand. The feeling was largely gone from the better part of his extremities now, and though his mental faculties were more than above par, there were moments where things were hazy. Memories, thoughts, ideas. He was deteriorating each time he died, he could feel it. He was exhausted constantly and no amount of pepper-up potion could fix him. He was for all intents and purposes little more than a barely animated corpse. Kept alive out of a refusal to lose, more than because he was meant to. 

He wasn’t sure he would survive another reincarnation, but he knew Harry would never let him go. Harry would travel to the depths of the Underworld to get Draco back if that’s what it took, Draco sighed, closing his eyes, and fell asleep to the comforting scent of Harry on his pillow. 

 


End file.
